So, I got up at 7:30am for no reason.

So, the weather's been reeeally nice so far this month! Thank god~ I am so done with winter. David and I decided to stay home for Golden Week, which was nice. Got lots of rest and we've been watching Doctor Who. David told me he wasn't interested at first, but then he started loading the episodes before I even suggested it, so woo hoo~ Now, if only he'd be so eager to watch Sherlock...

Anywho~ On Monday I got up early to go into work. The trains were a bit busier than normal that morning, but I didn't really give it any thought. I walked off to work and took the elevator upstairs only to discover the door was locked. Odd~ Everyone is always there by then. So, I looked at the little schedule hanging on the notice board. Monday was a holiday. Oops. So, I got up at 7:30am for no reason. Damn~ But, no matter. It was a lovely day, so I walked over to the local park and took a seat on a bench near the pond. I had my kobo with me, so I sat down and just read for about 2 hours. It was gorgeous~ Almost a little too hot, but there was a really nice breeze to counteract that. The gardeners have been busy the past week or so making the park all beautiful and the smell of spring flowers was everywhere. Oh man, it was amazing. I've never really stepped into a park and been engulfed in floral scents before, but it was really nice! When I finally left, I thought my arms felt rather warm and I didn't realise until I got home that I gave myself a sunburn on my forearms! And on my scalp along my hair part. Damn!

At work Chiga and Midori have been handing out the monthly newsletter to all our parents. They asked me to write a little spot for it. I guess the parents like to hear from the foreign teachers and hear about the customs and holidays and whatnot. Mike and I are going to alternate every other month. Here's what I wrote for May~

Hi everyone! I'm so excited that it's finally May! At home we have a saying that "April showers bring May flowers". In May many people start to work on their gardens and there's flowers everywhere! My mum has a garden filled with roses and it's lovely! She loves to garden! In Canada we celebrate Victoria Day at the end of the month. It is a holiday, usually around the 24th of May, celebrating old Queen Victoria of England's birthday. Everyone gets a long weekend and we all celebrate with parties, barbeques, parades and fireworks! It's brilliant! I'm really looking forward to the nice, warm weather that May will bring. Have a wonderful May everybody!

 On top of that, they were handing out the Scholastic book flyer. Oh my god. I haven't seen those since I was in grade 8! Nostalgiaaaa~ It was hilarious. I flipped through and I noticed that they're still selling Goosebumps and the Horrible Histories! I used to love the Horrible History books~!

Ai-sensei recently brought me in some cold prevention syrup. Her mother makes it, apparently. David had a really bad cold recently and after she heard me mention it, Ai-sensei decided to give us some as a gift! I think it's Karin Syrup? I'm pretty sure that's what it said. The Front of the bottle says: Jam Obasan or Jam Auntie. Cute, eh?

I popped into Starbucks on my way home today~ It's payday today so I thought I'd treat myself with my first paycheck. They had a memo board in front of their handoff area where all the partners wrote a little blurb about their favourite drinks and whatnot. A few of the girls in there practice their English with me whenever I go in and they included some on their cards!

David and I are both off on Sunday, so we may go on a mini adventure, but we're not sure yet. We're gonna at least go into Sendai. But, we'll see. And tomorrow I go back to the dentist and Utako-sensei is gonna continue my root canal work. Woo~

Wow. Ok, I didn't need to know that, thanks.

On my first day back from Tokyo, David was off, so we went out for dinner. It was really nice~ I had missed him a lot while I was away. We decided to eat that this bakery restaurant in Aeon. They have a bread buffet which is included with your meal. Heaven~~~~ We both got the dinner set which included a started salad and drink bar. I got the beef stroganoff and it was sooo good~ Yummm! And I ate a crap ton on bread too, since it was included and I love bread.

So, on the 21st we had an Easter Party event for my school. Families could sign up to attend if they wanted. It was on the Sunday right after my Tokyo trip~ I was excited to get back to work, but nervous since I'd never done an event like this before with this school. Midori had sent me an email the night before asking if I could get to the school for 8:15am. Which meant, I was up and on the train at 7:13am. Ouch. It was a reeeeally early morning! And to make it worse? It was snowing. Like, reeeeally snowing! The chunks of snow flying out of the sky were huuuuge! It was insane!

After the party, I took some pictures of the my school, since some people were asking for them. It's seriously like stepping back into a kindergarden class! I mean that in the best way, of course~ I actually squealed when I saw the Clifford poster the first time. (Chiga and Midori laughed at me. Hahaha.)

On Monday I went to work for my first preschool class sans Mike. It went pretty well. I get along with all the other teachers and the kids are mostly pretty good~ David had packed me lunch (and he packed me lunch all week!) which I thought was adorable. My week went pretty well. Baba-sensei brought us all in coffee jelly on Thursda, which was really nice! I've actually never tried it, so it was neat! I ended up meeting David in Sendai on our way home that night and grabbed a coffee while I waited.

Aside from that snowy weirdness last weekend, it's been all lovely weather! It was so clear a few days ago that I could see the roads on the mountains. They're still snow covered, though~

So, on Saturday I went to the dentist. I was debating going, since I'm suffering from a cold. It's not bad, just a runny nose, but I wasn't sure if I should still go. David convinced me to keep my appointment and when I got there Utako-sensei gave me a lecture about going to the dentist when you're sick. But, since I wasn't puking or feverish we decided to plunge ahead. Now, on the upper left side of my mouth, my back molar had a massive cavity. It didn't hurt me or bother me at all, but I knew that one day I'd need to get a root canal. It was just too damn big to fill. And apparently Utako-sensei decided Friday was the day to do it. I had no warning! She just said she was gonna take a look and then she was telling me about injections and whatnot.

Now, the injections thing was funny. There I was, lying pseudo-upsidedown in the chair and she announced that she was going to start giving me injections. She gave me three. The first went into the front gum, then the back on the roof of my mouth. She informed me that the back one might hurt but it didn't. More a pinch than anything. And then she paused and asked me to make a fist and wiggle my feet. I gave her a confused look, but did as I was told. While I did that she asked me if my pulse felt elevated or if I felt queasy or anything. When I answered that I felt fine she told me to just keep breathing and if I felt sick to raise my left hand so she could call an ambulance. Thanks~ That's exactly what I wanna hear. So, the third injection went right into my tooth, apparently. Don't know how, but ok. And she made sure to inform me that this one had to be done suuuuuper sloooooow. If she just shot it all in at once it would cause me heart palpitations or whatnot and I might have a reaction. Wow. Ok, I didn't need to know that, thanks. So, for about 3 minutes while she's pushing this in, she's asking me to wiggle my hands and feet and breathe and is my pulse normal and do you feel ok and oh, nervousness if fine and let me know if you need an ambulance ok we're done rinse please.

o___o

It was intense. So, anywho, she started drilling my tooth away and I have to say that it's the worst smell on the planet. Like burnt spaghetti mixed with cinnamon dolce syrup then burned more. Horrid. This whole time I didn't feel any pain whatsoever. Utako-sensei kept asking me if I was ok and she kept saying that I was doing exceedingly well for a first time root canal-ee. She actually took out the nerve/root whatever without me even noticing. It was crazy. The injections didn't really numb my face, though. It felt like everything in that area was tightened and heavier. Weeeird. Anywho, after all that things got better. She ground down for a while, then announced that she was going to fill it with some yellowish medicine and stopper it with some plastic filling thing and that next time she'd fill it properly, barring any crazy infection. Anywho, she prescribed me some painkillers just in case I felt anything later and sent me on my merry way. And the total cost? 2,400yen for that visit + the medication. Cheeeap~

After getting home that afternoon, I didn't really have any pain. David had wanted to go see Iron Man 3 that night, but when I went to go meet him after work we discovered that the movie wasn't playing at the time we originally thought! It suuucked. And also and this point I was starting to suffer from a bit of a heasdache. So, David indulged me and I grabbed a Starbucks drink. The current seasonal drink is Tiramisu which was yummy! The girls at the Bux all said hello and seemed happy to see me, since I hadn't been in in about 2 months. I told them about my new job and the asked how I'd been. They're so sweet in there~

On our way home we passed by a display of razors. It seems that Schick is teaming up with Evangelion again for their marketing. I snapped a photo, since Angel and Jake would get a kick out of it, and made a mental note to pick up a pack for Jake when I get paid. (They had special figures included as gifts.) And the promo art is hilarious for people who've seen the anime. Gendou, the dude in the front, just looks so damn weird with that smile and the spikey hair. Hahaha. It's hilarious.

So, on Saturday, we finally went and saw Iron Man 3. It was reeeeally good! I liked it! I won't post any spoilers, but Stan Lee's cameo was hilarious and the ending 'teaser' was pretty funny. It was weird, though~ David and I laughed at a bunch of parts and the other people in the theatre didn't really laugh at all. Like, when we saw Stan Lee we burst into giggles and everyone else was silent. And there's parts that are like serious, but are funny thanks to Tony diffusing the tension and no one would laugh! It was strange, but I guess some things don't translate well into Japanese or whatever. Anywho, when I bought our tickets they were having a promo and gave me free folders as a gift. Score~

Oh, and just for giggles David and I picked up some Dragon Ball Z pops recently. David only grabbed a can because I told him to, but he didn't wanna drink it. So, I drank both. And both were disappointing. The Coke Zero was pretty bad and the Cider tasted like carbonated banana medicine. Yick. At least the cans were cool~

Oh well, I thought, I'm sure to find it. Can't be that hard, right?

So, when we last left our daring duo, they were enjoying a snack at Artnia, the impossibly annoying to find new location of the Square Enix store and cafe. After our wonderful snack we caught the subway back to our hotel to relax. Neither of us were really hungry for dinner, since we had eaten so late, so we popped out to the Family Mart to grab a drink and a small snack for later. We tossed around the idea of doing karaoke again, but dismissed it and just vegged. It was nice to just chill together. I was playing text tag with Gayner, who we were going to be meeting the next day for lunch.

So, Sunday dawning all lovely and sunny and we checked out at about 11:00 and made our way to Shinjuku. We had made plans to meet Gayner at the Central West Exit at 11:30. We followed the signs and somehow ended up in the basement! Oops... Never fear, though. I harassed Gayner through texts until we all managed to find each other. Poor Gayner was suffering from a rather epic cold and had lost her voice! She squeaked and rasped her greetings until we convinced her to use a notepad. (I had also recommended she bring some maracas, but sadly she had none with her.) I had made us reservations at the Alice Cafe across from the station. They started at 11:55, but they were more than happy to let us in early.

We started off with a drink called Alice's Wonderland Tea Party cocktail. It tasted like a raspberry earl grey kinda drink. With grenadine and maybe some extra orange juice. It was really quite nice. They also brought over our started, bruschetta and bread.

After we devoured our bread we were presented with a salad. It was pretty good and had a lovely pancetta rose on top! Yum~

After the salad, we were served 2 different pastas. One was a carbonera with brocolli and spinach. And the other was a shrimp, mushroom and watery sauce type pasta. Both were quite yummy. ...Aaaand I forgot to take photos. My bad~ Dessert was delicious! It was matcha roll cake, whippec cream and fruit. It was arranged to look like the caterpillar! Cute and yummy!

After lunch, Keira left to go catch a train back to her school and Gayner and I slipped over to McDonalds to grab a coffee and chat. It was nice~ We just chilled for about an hour. After coffee, we made a quick trip to Uniqlo to window shop. However, after that we both went our separate ways. I caught the Yamanote line to Gotanda to meet Sara. It was so nice to see her! We dropped my stuff off at her apartment, then she immediately took me out to grab some hair dye. We had a night of beauty which was awesome~ We also had a night of pizza. REAL pizza. It was amazing!

So, the next day was Monday and I planned on just having a chill day. My budget for this trip was rather tight, so I didn't have any big plans for this day. I woke up early with Sara to help her make some pancakes for her class. (Read: 6:30am) Then when she left for school I passed out again. I got up late, spent a nice relaxing morning watching My Kitchen Rules on her laptop and just vegged. I decided around 2:30 that I should at least go out and grab a coffee, so I popped to a local Starbucks and grabbed a Chai. I was there for just under two hours~ Just enjoying my drink and my book. I made plans to meet Sara after she was done work and we grabbed some groceries before heading back. We had a really nice pasta for dinner.

So, after dinner Sara planted me in a chair and started to slather makeup on me. She decided that she wanted to have a small glamour shoot. She kept saying that I had really classic features and that I looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor. Can't lie~ I felt all pretty and whatnot. I think she took about 400 pictures! Hahaha. I only kept about 12. It was a fun evening, though.

The next day, Tuesday, I had made plans to meetup with my friend Yenni (pronounced Jenny) and her husband. We met at the train station near her place and went shopping. It was really fun! Yenni and Fluffy (her husbands nickname due to his fluffy hair) are super sweet and I love hanging out with them. We grabbed a late lunch at a really nice cafe in their local Aeon. They insisted on treating me, which I thought was amazingly nice of them. <3 I grabbed a brown sugar milk coffee and a BLT. Yummm~

After our shopping trip we headed off to Disney Sea. We had picked up After 6 passes so we could spend the evening in the park. I looove Disney (which I'm sure y'all have gathered by now) and even though I couldn't afford to spend the whole day at the park it was a lot of fun going in the evening. Yenni has a massive Shellie Mae plush that she dressed up as Alice! She carried it around and waved it's paws to people and everyone loved it.

After we entered the park, we made our way to the gift shops. It wasn't as crowded as it would be later when the park closed, which was great since we just wanted to see what was being offered. I looove the window displays and the decor in Disney's shops. It's amazing~

We went for a walk towards the American Harbour area and decided to catch a show. The Big Band Beat show is a tribute to American jazz music and whatnot. It was pretty impressive~ We waited for about 20minutes for our show to start and it was 30minutes long. The main singers were all American and they were excellent. It was cool~ PS. I love that there's a McDuck's Department Store in Disney Sea~

After the show, we hopped onto the train and wandered over to 'Duffy's House'. It's the main Duffy merch store. It's usually suuuuper busy, but luckily it was empty. I just wanted to go take a quick look, seeing as I've never been in there.

After Duffy's house, we were all feeling kinda hungry, so we wandered off to the New York Deli for dinner. However, as luck would have it, the night show Fantasmic was about to start! So, we made a pit stop to watch it. It was really cute! We passed by the new Toy Story Midway area on our way to Fantasmic and I snapped a photo. It looks like fun~ Maybe next time!

For dinner I got the chicken ciabatta sandwich with some fries and a coke. Once again, Fluffy refused to take my money, so dinner was a treat. I felt so spoiled, let me tell you~ Dinner was delicious! The sammich was really tasty! And after dinner we all grabbed a coffee and just chit chatted.

Soon enough, the park was closing and we made a mad dash off to the shops to pick up our omiyage. They have such amazingly cute things! I picked up a special glass bottle of coke for David and some cookies for work. I didn't end up buying anything for myself,  but I had a blast! We didn't actually do much, but it was a lot of fun just being there, you know? David and I are planning on possibly going up during Obon Week in August, so we'll see what happens~

On Wednesday I had made the decision to do the Imperial Castle Loop running route in Tokyo. I hopped off the subway in the downtown area and tried to find the running station I looked up online. I had done some research that morning to help me find a good starting spot. I chose the Runner's Station which had a shower area, lockers and a change room. It was cheap and they were able to provide instructions on how to get to where I wanted to go. However, once I got out of the subway I was totally lost. I think I wandered around lost for about 20minutes before I found a sports store. I walked in and asked where the Station was, and they pointed me to a different place. I ended up using the Puma Runner's Station. It was the same thing, basically, but the people there spoke no English whatsoever and weren't able to give me directions. Oh well, I thought, I'm sure to find it. Can't be that hard, right?

Not so much. I changed and left and wandered about for about an hour trying to find the loop. No dice. I found a park and ran for a bit, but I kept having to dodge kids and students and there were no other runners, so I gave up and went back to the Station. I showered, changed and headed back to Sara's.

Sara had texted asking if I wanted burgers for dinner that night. There's a Hawaiian burger place right near her apartment and she got takeout. We met up at the station and headed home. She got me a cheeseburger and she cut some avacado to put on top. Yummmmm~ We had that and fries. Sara got a half order of normal fries and sweet potato fries! I haven't had those in like 2 years. It was amazing!

We ended up watching Les Mis that night, which was fun. Poor Sara was exhausted from a long day at work, so she passed out rather early. I went out that night to Ebisu Garden Place. I had long meant to go there to take a picture of a certain landmark. It's very prominent in Hana Yori Dango, and I've been meaning to go there for a long while. So glad I finally did! I also made a trip off to central Tokyo to pop into the Maruzen book store. They used to have a really cute Sherlock dollhouse on display and I wanted to see it. Unfortunately, it was not on display any longer! Oh well. I snapped a few photos on the way back of the Pocky ads in the station~ They've got Charlie Brown as part of their advertising right now. Oh, and Nino the Pocky demon. Hahaha.

The next day was my last day in Tokyo and I had decided to go to Odaiba~ I took the Tokyo Monorail just for giggles. It's actually a direct route to get to Haneda airport, but it's a great way to see the bay area and it's just a nice ride. I took it from the start point all the way out to the airport and then switched to the other line and went back. I got off one stop early, though, and then hopped the subway to Tokyo Teleport (or Odaiba). I like Odaiba~ It's nice. I walked about Venus Fort for a bit and took pictures, grabbed lunch at Subway and just spent a nice relaxing day. I popped into the Hello Kitty area again, too~ And then I remembered about the Gundam. There's a lifesize Gundam outside one of the malls, so I went to find it. It was pretty cool, can't lie~ Although, smaller than I envisioned it. Meh. Still neat!

After my Odaiba adventure, I toddled back to Sara's. We had a nice dinner of chicken, cheesy creamy veg pasta and avacado. It was reeeeally nice! Sara's a great cook! The picture may not make it look good, but it sooo was~

Sadly, I had to catch my nightbus at about 10:30 from Tokyo Disneyland, so Sara and I said goodbye at the station at about 8:30. The trip to Tokyo Disneyland was pretty uneventful, although I felt bad because I had my big suitcase with me and the train got pretty packed at one point. But, still~ When I got to Disney it was suuuuuper windy! Like, crazy windy! It was after the fireworks, so there were a lot of people who were leaving the parks at this point. I walked down towards the parking lot and I just enjoyed the atmosphere and the music and whatnot. I got to see the castle all lit up, which was nice~ My bus got there early and I was actually the only person catching the bus from that stop! So, they left me on early and we left early! And even then, when the rest of the people got on in Shinjuku the bus was still mostly empty. There was a grand total of 9 of us on the bus. Awesome. And with the lights out it was actually dark! I actually got some sleep this time! Crazy, eh? When I got back into Sendai it was about 6am aka ridiculous early o'clock. I caught the first train out to Morisekinoshita and trudged home half asleep. That was the longest 15 minutes of my life, but it was sooo nice to come home. David actually woke up 2 minutes before I walked in, so he was awake when I got there. I dropped my bags, changed and collapsed into bed. It was nice~